Sunday, January 30, 2005

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

LLMB and MMPA get their knickers in a twistFrom AP reports–The Good:
The polls closed on a surprisingly peaceful election in Iraq, today. Esimates of participation of eligible voters range upwards of 70%. This compares favorably with our own most recent election, of course. In November, 2004, a turnout in the low 60% range was cause for celebration among those who tout democracy as a Good Thing (of course, that excludes most elites among the Democratic Party). Here, charges of "voter intimidation" were leveled by "Democrats" against people who had an eagle eye out to defend against vote fraud. In Iraq, women carried children to vote. Men carried the elderly to vote. Despite threats (and actual attacks), people stood in line for hours to exercise their franchise. The polls closed at 5:00 Iraq time, but anyone still in line was allowed to vote.Even Reuters (Also known as "Al-Jazeera West") had to admit the good news, as these comments from Reuters' Luke Baker demonstrate:

Even in Falluja, the Sunni city west of Baghdad that was a militant stronghold until a U.S. assault in November, a steady stream of people turned out, confounding expectations. Lines of veiled women clutching their papers waited to vote."We want to be like other Iraqis, we don't want to always be in opposition," said Ahmed Jassim, smiling after he voted.In Baquba, a rebellious city northeast of Baghdad, spirited crowds clapped and cheered at one voting station. In Mosul, scene of some of the worst insurgent attacks in recent months, U.S. and local officials said turnout was surprisingly high.

The Bad:36 people were killed by mass murderers who feared the elections. That's a bad day in "the hood" in the U.S. It's also (proportionally) about three times the number of deaths from auto accidents in one day that we would expect in a similar population number here in the U.S. (Roughly 125 die on our roads from auto accidents, daily. Since U.S. population is roughly 10 times that of Iraq, you do the math.)
The Ugly:
All-in-all, though there were some vicous attacks by thugs who fear the People, Iraq has taken a major step toward a level freedom unknown—ever!—in that country before now. The courage and determination of the Iraqi people really put the whining by our own Democrats about "vote suppression" into perspective. The comparison is hardly flattering to the Loony Left Moonbat Brigade and their co-conspirators in the Mass Media Podpeople's Army who are apparently running the Democratic Party. Both wings of the Stupid Envious and Evil Party (SEEP) have spent a lot of time denegrating the Iraqi election, today. No surprise. Over and over again they trumpeted that it would be a failure, illegitimate, yadayada, in the lead-up to the election. Now, with the obvious success of this election, they have to exaggerate the negatives, eliminate the possitive, hold on to the injurous and not mess with Mr. in between... (With apologies to Johnny Mercer .)
Yeh, the LLMB and the MMPA are the Ugly, all right.